In celebration of my 100th episode, join me for Part 4 in this six-part book series where I share insights from “The Well-Lived Life” by centenarian Gladys T. McGarey, M.D.
"You are Never Truly Alone is the topic for Part 4 of our six-part book series. I share a framework for both soul and social connections and illustrate concepts from Gladys around the power of listening and embracing imperfection. I end the episode with Gladys’ five-step practice for weaving the fabric of life together.
I illustrate Gladys’ five-step practice for weaving the fabric of life together. This powerful message serves as a reminder of the love around you. Listen in to learn more about the wisdom and insight Gladys has to share with us. What does it feel like to be supported and connected? Please reach out. I would love to hear from you.
If you are enjoying these conversations, help me hit 100 reviews in celebration of my 100th episode! (And a big thank you to Piper for the review.) Please subscribe and spread the love by leaving a review and sharing it with your friends. Thank you.
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Dana Frost 00:07
Welcome to Vitally You, a podcast created to introduce you to the tools that will be your roadmap for feeling younger while growing older. I'm your host Dana Frost, a wellness expert, life coach and energy medicine practitioner. Here's what you can expect conversations about vitality from the inside out with guest experts in the field of health, culture and spirituality and solo episodes along the way from me where I do deep dives into the topics of aging, heart intelligence, energy, medicine, and your innate capacity to heal. If you want to feel younger, while growing older, this is the place for you.
Dana Frost 00:48
Hi, everyone. I'm Dina Frost, your host and welcome to the Vitally You podcast. We are in week four of a six part series talking about the book, The well lived life, a 102 year old doctors, six secrets to health and happiness at every age. Okay, so this past weekend, I was at the biohacking Congress in Miami, where I was on a panel for longevity and energy medicine. And I wanted to share my headliner for this very high vibe three day event. And that is I love Miami even more than I did before. I just felt the international Latin culture that loves to connect with other people, the community there were probably 200 people there. They were open. There was just this buzz all weekend of, hey, I'm interested in what you're doing. What are you doing and how can we work together and you know, I have found that after going to multiple biohacking conferences, there really are a wide range of people, people who are techie and are creating these biohacking things. There are people who want to just feel better. There are people who have had health crisis and have found the conventional model lacking and so they go looking for other ways to heal. And they find this whole world of biohackers are really people just who want to optimize their health. So I mean, it was really interesting for me to compare Dave Asprey, his Biohacking Conference that's larger, there's more glitz and glamour there. But I have to say Miami brought heart and soul.
Dana Frost 02:35
There was this automatic sense of trust and wanting to connect on a deeper level. You know, I'm talking about somebody in tears and me putting my arms around them. I'm talking about a young man who came up and shared with me that he had been activated to be a healer. And then we went on to have this really long conversation. So they're not just people who say, hey, I want to be bionic, really. They're people who are desiring to be a conduit of love and healing in this world. And I think that is just so amazing. The three day event was filled with pure beauty, love and light. And I am coming off of that with deep gratitude for the fact that I get to live most of my life in Miami, so a big shout out to the biohacking Congress in Miami. So before we get started, I want a while I have a big favor. As you know, this is a series in celebration of my 100th episode of my podcast and I am it's really our podcast because it's not really about me, it's about you. But I am asking you the listeners to help me reach 100 reviews. So if you haven't left a review and you are enjoying this podcast, please leave a review. I want to read this review. It's called The Power of mushrooms by Piper in Arkansas. Dana, congratulations on your 100th podcast. I have been an avid listener since the beginning and I must say your latest podcast on Alice mushrooms hit home. I use Alice mushrooms for focus and your last episode or your latest podcast answered all my questions about their product. Thank you for always seeking new alternatives to easily incorporate in our day to day lives.
Dana Frost 04:22
You were always on point and have changed the way I look at my overall health. I look forward to the next 100 Piper in Arkansas. Well, Piper a big shout out to you and thank you so much for all of you listeners. Actually, Piper is one of my clients. And Piper is also the person who introduced me to Alice mushroom. So thank you Piper. So let's get in to today's episode. Okay, So week one, let's just review it was all about finding your juice and that is what's your why why are you even here on this planet? Why did your soul incarnate and Gladys helped us to find our juice. If we're in a time struggling in a period where we just don't feel the juice, to just find where there's a little bit of joy, go to where, remember the things that brought you joy in past seasons in your life. Week two, we talked about finding the trickle in the dam, the overall topic was life needs to move, all of life needs to move. And when you are stagnant, you need to find one little place where there's movement and go to that place move, all of life needs to move. Last week, we talked about my favorite topic, and it was entitled Love is the most powerful medicine this week, the topic is you are never truly alone. I want you to hear that qualifier truly.
Dana Frost 05:52
Because I know there are times we feel alone, or there are times that I have felt alone, actually, this summer, I went through a period of feeling alone, it's really important to know your constitution. So for example, for me, I people don't believe this, but I am an introvert. And anyone in my family will tell you that they know that that is very true. I need a lot of time by myself to process I process first internally, to reenergize myself, I have to be alone. And an odd way, I've always felt different. I felt different than my family of upbringing, even though I felt loved it, you know, there was mutual love, that I've talked about that on the podcast. So that's not really new to you. It is easy for me to sneak into the feeling of being alone, even though I might be surrounded by my family. And that's because I do all this internal processing. That's my constitution, it's really important to know, your constitution, because for example, if you're an extrovert, and you just love being around people, and so you're around people all the time, but you're not around people who fuel your soul who like have that rub with you, that really fills your love tank.
Dana Frost 07:07
Even though you're around people all the time, you may feel alone, because you're not with the people who are giving you soul food. We're going to talk a little bit about that in the future. So what I have learned is that I'm never truly alone, truly alone. And when I do feel alone, the first thing I need to do, number one, I need to seek connection with my guides. And I believe that we all have guides, Gladys talks about this, and I'll talk about a little bit later. But when I say guides, I mean unseen guides. For me there are the Holy Spirit is one of those Jesus is one of those family members, my dad is one of those grandmothers, one of those cousins is one of those guides in the spirit world, and guides in terms of reaching out for connection. So for me, that means reaching out to my husband about what I really need, if I'm feeling alone, I need to be vulnerable. And I need to let the most important person in my life, my most intimate person, my spouse, I need to express my feelings to that person, so that they can be there with me, or reaching out to other friends reaching out to people you know, who really care about you. So let me just start with the foundation. As humans, we need each other. We are created to crave community. So we are created to crave community. And if you look at the blue zones in the world, those places in the world where people live the longest, they have the greatest number of centenarians, there are common characteristics, and a very strong characteristic amongst all of them is community. And not just community, but it's the community provides purpose. Because when you're living in community with other people, you're in contact, that context of community gives purpose because you're contributing to the greater community. And so you want to ask yourself, if you feel you're feeling alone, how am I contributing, I had to ask myself that this summer, and it led me down this path of, oh, I need to just do what I shared. I need to be more open about what I'm feeling I need to let people in. And as we take those steps, the lie that we are alone dissipates.
Dana Frost 09:31
And if we talk about energy, and that we are energy and our soul is energy and this physical body that we have is energy. We are all connected and science is now proving that if we look at I'm going to go back to just the physical connection, the fascia in that episode with an array that was so powerful, the energetic web of connectedness in our physical body, and then we look at our heart rate variability and how the heart waves they move to and from our heart and they connect us to other people in this web, this energetic web of connection, we are truly connected with every other human, we are connected with every plant, every animal, all of life has this web of connectedness. Okay, I wanted to talk about how we're really being persuaded to live in more and more isolation. And I think that, you know, we have the pandemic as that stark corner, if you will, in the matrix where we were afraid of our fellow human. And so we easily confined ourselves or isolated ourselves behind four walls. And you know, but before that we were isolating behind screens. And, you know, instead of getting being in person with people to play games, we're behind our screen and playing virtually. And so there's this virtual reality that we're engaged with, but I want to tell you, there is no substitution for skin to skin contact, nothing. Nothing can substitute for that.
Dana Frost 11:14
And I really felt that this weekend at the Biohacking Conference. There are so many virtual conferences today, you know, there are almost every topic in the health world you can find a summit a virtual Summit. In my experience attending those virtual summits, they don't do it for me, I don't feel connected to people when it's through the screen. Yes, there are times I can feel connected with people through the screen. But really, truly until I have that skin to skin connection, there's something like that lifeforce is missing. For me, I don't know what your experience is. But that's definitely my experience. Several years ago, I had a health mastermind that was rooted in in person retreats three times a year, and when the pandemic hit, we tried a virtual retreat. And it just wasn't the same. It didn't, you know, especially from a health perspective, and what we were trying to do, it didn't do it. For me, it's really hard, especially for women to truly disconnect when you are trying to attend something through a screen. So after having especially this in person experience at the Biohacking Conference and feeling so unbelievably to these strangers who, you know, when they came up to me to learn about lifewave patches, and then to talk to me about my, you know, the things that I shared on the panel about longevity and energy medicine, that skin to skin being with someone where you're looking in their eyes, and they can feel the energy emanating from your body, it was so powerful. So we can look at and Gladys actually mentions a couple of studies that I'll bring forward.
Dana Frost 12:51
Before the pandemic, we were having a crisis of loneliness. There's a study from Brigham Young University that revealed that feeling lonely has the same effect on longevity as smoking 15 cigarettes a day output, these few studies that she mentions that I'm going to mention, I'll put them in the show notes. Also poor social connections, there was a 29% increase in risk of stroke. So if you had poor social connections, you had a 29% increased risk of stroke. There's a Harvard study on adult development that showed that the quality of our relationships at age 50 is the greatest predictor of our health and well being at age 80. This really confirms my idea that what we're doing now impacts us 10 years down the road, 20 years down the road, 30 years down the road. So you know, if you're in your 40s know that what you're doing today is providing the foundation for your health when you're in your 60s and when you're in your 70s thought that study was really interesting from Harvard. I just want to quote Gladys here, connecting with community amplifies our individual life force by realigning it with the collective life force. I find that to be so true, and it was really interesting at the Biohacking Conference. One of my goals was to make meaningful connections with people who lived and practiced in the health world. In Miami, I want to build my Miami health community. And I knocked that totally out of the park. I just met so many amazing people.
Dana Frost 14:33
And again, when you walk up to someone and you're talking to somebody, you have no idea what their story is. And as it turned out, I ended up meeting a lot of people who are practicing in Miami, so that was super exciting. So this, this is my invitation to you. Okay. I think that this is probably the biggest take home for this episode. And it's not something that Gladys has talked about, but it's a framework that I've been working with, and it's woven into this part four, about connections, you will have these in the connecting world, you will have social connections or soul connections, social connections and or soul connections, we need both. Neither one is wrong, or neither one is bad, you know, but we do need to have both. And if you don't have the soul connections, your human is going to be underdeveloped. Because you're not with people who are connecting with your soul and helping your soul to bloom and flourish. You can have a life filled with social connections, and maybe you will have a lot of fun in life, you know, you your life is very full. And, and that may be That's enough, but I don't believe it's enough for your soul. Typically, people who have soul connections, they're also connected with those people on a social level. So I feel like that kind of goes both ways. But what is a social connection, a social connection, it's the relationships that are centered around social engagements. And those can be a lot of fun.
Dana Frost 16:14
As I said, there's nothing wrong with them. But we do need a little bit more. They're not can you know, think about you go to any event, we've all done this, or we have a social engagement with friends, and we come back and we're actually more tired. We're not more animated, we're not inspired. And by no means you don't have to be inspired after every social interaction, but your energy. So if we're just looking at the energy body, with every interaction you have on the human level, your energy is going to be elevated, maybe neutral or deflated. And so you want to look in those social relationships? Are the social engagements elevating you at a deeper level? Or do you walk away and they're only skin deep, and so you're like, you can live without it. So you that would be one measurement. I like this. Look at your relationships, could you live without those relationships, if you could live without those relationships, you probably need to go searching for soul connections, Soul relationships, Soul relationships, those are the relationships where you have this experience, I see you, and I feel seen by you. And we don't have to be in an intimate relationship with this person. But there's this reverence. And you see the person who is before you, and you recognize them for who they are. And I want to tell you, Well, before I tell you, there's another aspect of soul connection, there's mutual vulnerability. If there isn't mutual vulnerability in a relationship, there's not really a soul connection. Now, you may have a therapist, and that's, there's no mutual vulnerability.
Dana Frost 17:55
Or you might have a relationship with a practitioner. That's something different, that's a professional relationship. But in these soul connections, there's mutual vulnerability. So let me tell you about this experience that I had over the weekend. So after I was on this panel, the young man came up to me. And he started sharing his experience. Well, he wanted to know about the patches, he wanted to know if they could potentially help symptoms with the special needs children who he works with, in a professional manner. So we started talking, then he quickly he, you know, talked about things that I shared on the panel, and then he started telling me some very deep information about himself and some experience some spiritual experiences that he had been having. And he wanted some validation. He wanted to be seen, he wanted to be heard, he wanted to know, does this woman in front of me understand this? Am I crazy, you know, he wanted validation. And I knew what he was talking about. And, um, it was an honor an absolute honor to hear his story. And to reflect back to him what I could see in him and to reflect back to him my own experience. So when we have a soul connection, there's just this quickening that you see in the other person and you feel seen. Okay, so soul connection versus social connection. The other concept that Gladys talks about that I think is so important. The chapter is entitled embracing in perfection.
Dana Frost 19:33
And she talks about you're gonna get dirty, and it can be chaotic. And I have so experienced this to be true. The times when I'm most connected with people are times when things are kind of, a lot of times it's when we are we feel the most vulnerable and our life feels vulnerable and we are in community with other people to help us in the process or our you know, another person in our life is going through difficult thing or, I think I mentioned when my daughter the night that my daughter and son in law came home with their second child. Recently I mentioned it was like totally chaotic and kind of wild. And their first child who was 13 months old was feeling all the vibes of a new of just like not understanding what was happening. We could say that was like this chaotic time, but we all felt connected together. And it was very powerful. When we are come together and community, things are always in place. You know, we can't keep perfect conditions in our environment, we need to be if we're going to be having people in our home, we need to be open to like the uproar the fact that life there the physical environment will be out of order that you know, if we're going to prepare food for people, the kitchen is going to be messy and we want to be down for that. Are you down for that? Are you down for a little bit of messy so that you are connected in community? It's just so easy. We have this, I think this push and pull in our culture right now that we have a community for hire culture where we can hire everything out. We don't need to depend on other people. You know, we can hire a right to the airport, we can hire somebody to come and clean for us.
Dana Frost 21:19
We can hire food to be delivered. We no longer need to deliver food to people who are having a health crisis, although I think we do because I think they need healthy food and not food cooked in a restaurant. But it's very easy. If you're, you know, to have everything delivered to your home. I was telling my daughter, you know, when I was having kids, we literally had to go to Target to get our diapers, we didn't have diapers delivered to our home. And sometimes we had to reach out to a friend Hey, can you pick up some diapers for me? Eric, can you pick up we knew we had to ask friends to help us with some of those errands. When we were in a tight spot. I had an experience here in Miami a year ago where a couple who lives on our floor. We had met in the elevator and we you know we said hello a few niceties. And then later that day, I had a post it note on my door and they invited me to dinner. Now I wasn't able to go because I was actually leaving to go back to Chicago that day. But I so appreciated that and they left me their numbers as well. So that the next time when I came back, I could reach out and see if they were there. So we ended up meeting again. And they had us over to their home for dinner, which meant we invited them to our home for dinner. And at one point I asked if I could borrow something I don't remember what it was we could say it was sugar or butter or something. Because Maria likes to cook too.
Dana Frost 22:45
And we both agree Maria and I both agreed you know what, that's when you cross into the boundary of being a friend when you can ask someone for a favor like that a simple favor like asking for sugar. It already opens the relationship up for more to develop. And, and more has developed with Maria and Joe actually, we had them over for a crazy taco night last January when our kids were here. And it was really chaotic. It wasn't it was like super casual, very chaotic in the kitchen. But we had a raucous time together getting to know one another. I think that inviting people into your home, it really is a game changer. When people come into your home, they know something more about you and you let them in to behind the closed door who you are. I think that's so powerful. And I would love to see us, we'd love to see a return to in home entertainment. Let's see, I wanted to mention living in proximity. So when we live in proximity with other people or we live in community, and we're not isolated, it really forces this connection. I remember the first place we lived in Brazil it was there were four larger homes behind a wall. But they were very closely connected. And we became very good friends with another family and they're in in the homes and our daughter who at the time was I think probably three would just wander over to their home for breakfast and just show up, walk into their garage show hop in their home and sit down with them.
Dana Frost 24:25
And you know, it's just so easy in modern culture to be disconnected even in terms of proximity that we miss those very intimate daily connections with one another. It's one of the reasons my daughter and son in law moved from San Francisco to Chicago, because both of them have family in Chicago and then they're also closer to his family, his mom and dad and Boston and as sisters on the East Coast. Proximity allows for connections in a more intimate way. You're not trying to squeeze everything in, you know on these visits It's, you get to see what it's like to support somebody in the day to day, you know, but that does mean you get to see their chaos. And let's be vulnerable to the point. Let's be okay with imperfection that we let people see where we are imperfect. Let's let people see where we are, where we need something. When I moved to Chicago from after living abroad for 10 years, it was the hardest move I've ever done. From all the different places that I lived, returning to the US, it was the hardest move I've ever done. And a couple of things happen. And I will tell you that the women I'm still friends with from that time were the women who reached out in a very unique way, and saw me and I was able to see them. And it started with simple things. You know, for this one friend started, I was really looking for international friends. And I had heard that a South African woman had moved into this particular home.
Dana Frost 26:01
So I showed up in shorts and sweaty and with some homemade brownies. And we started walking, you know, we just we built this long friendship, because I dared to knock on her door and say, Hi, my name is Dana. I'd like to meet you. And here are some brownies for your family. She became an intimate friend and she became an ally. During the difficult time in my life, my health crisis and my marriage crisis. I can think about, you know, when I moved into my home, still, this person was a friend, she was my neighbor. She brought me banana bread. And we started little by little letting one another into our life. I can think of another friend, her son was friends with my son at school in the early time, you know, early in our days returning into Chicago, she picked up her son from my home and was having her 50th birthday party that night with all of her close friends.
Dana Frost 26:57
I was not one of them. She invited me to her 50th birthday party. She didn't know my husband and I and you know, it was like an hour later. And we were like, what do we have to lose? Let's go. And so we went and that started another long friendship. So we need to let people in to our chaos and be vulnerable. And you know, Gladys shared at a point in her life when she was a mother a young, I would say her children were young, and she was a doctor in a small community. And it was seemed like it was during World War Two and her husband had to go serve as a doctor. And she became this pretty much the sole doctor in this community. And she went from people not really wanting the female doctor to everybody needing her. And she became beloved in this small community in Ohio. And it became almost overwhelming that everywhere she went in the grocery store when she had her kids in tow, people wanted to tell her about their health issues right there, you know, on aisle 10.
Dana Frost 28:00
And she had to learn to create some boundaries. And I always tell my clients and I had to learn this myself, boundaries are beautiful. Boundaries are beautiful. When we tell people when we show either by words or actions, what our boundaries are. We're actually letting them in to who we are. We show them who we are. And we actually teach them that boundaries are beautiful, and that it's okay for them to have boundaries. Okay, I hope you all heard that because women I find have a hard time with boundaries. It's taken me it took me decades to learn to have boundaries. Okay, so Gladys shares about having the skill of listening and how powerful that is in a relationship. So I want to go back to this person, this young man, I met at the biohacking con Congress. What he needed most from me, mostly he needed my ears. He did not need my advice. He didn't need to hear my experience. He didn't need me to do most of the talking. He needed me to do most of the listening. He needed to be seen and heard. And I was able to show up for him in that way. And I've got to tell you, we're already working on something together.
Dana Frost 29:16
And we've already had a quick phone conversation last night, he wanted to tell me what happened with one of his clients after he used the patches and after he's just really leaning in to this force that's been ignited in him. So the skill of listening is very, very powerful. And when we align with our community, it fuels our lifeforce. So I knew and I had been, you know, really looking to build community in the health space and Miami, and I knew that it would be powerful for me and this biohacking Congress going to that was so you can tell I don't need to tell you everything that happened again, but it was really powerful because It fueled me I feel like my love tank and my mind body spirit is so full right now. I'm tired, but I'm fueled and really excited. So when we align with our community, our lifeforce is fueled, you know, something else begins to happen when we realize we're never truly alone. I mentioned reach out to your guides. I don't care if you believe this or not, but there are angels all around you all the time, you have guardian angels, and you have guides and some people can see them, I can hear them, I can communicate through feelings. And in audible communication. This is such a cool reality to tap into, you're never alone. There are literally angels and guides beside you, waiting for you to pay attention to them and to call upon them and to ask for the specific support that you need.
Dana Frost 31:00
You can imagine for David, I mean for this person that I met at the biohacking Congress, now you know his name. He's hearing from guys and getting direction, and he wanted to talk about that. And then he even said, wow, making this connection to you, that was very powerful in terms of just him feeling guided to the right people at the right time. It's so very powerful. This idea that, you know, we're all weaving, we are all woven together in the fabric of light, we are never truly alone. Remember, we're never truly alone, you may feel alone. And if you feel alone, I would start with where can you let somebody in? Who do you trust to let them in? So let's let's go to let me get the book. And let's let me share what Gladys says about this practice for weaving together the fabric of life. Number one, think about your friends, co workers, families and neighbors, the people you see most often in life. Let yourself wander in what ways is my community working? In what ways? Is it not working? Do you feel a sense of connection? And do you rely on one another number to start remembering times when you felt truly supported by your community? This could be something simple, such as being helped with a household task, being given a friendly shoulder to cry on being given a ride to the mechanic, you know, all those different things?
Dana Frost 32:32
Let yourself remember how it felt. I will tell you when we were had our marriage crisis, the most important question that our therapist asked us initially was, can you remember a time when you felt connected? You know, that was easy for us. Both of us could go back and remember when we felt like we supported one another and we're connected. So really powerful question. Number three. Allow yourself to recall times in the past when you offered your time or support to others. Think of any small action that brought someone joy and remember how it felt to see their smile. Next, ask yourself what relationships need my love and tending. You can think of your love as concentric circles that radiate out from your heart. Whom can you call and connect with? Whom can you forgive? Which relationships deserve better boundaries? How can you find the friend within everyone? Even someone you don't like? How can you enrich your relationships and weave the fabric of life together more tightly. Number five, the last one. Now weave the fingers of your hands together in front of you as some do in prayer.
Dana Frost 33:42
And remember that your love is your deepest prayer and your truest expression of your life. Allow your hands to feel connected and supported. You can weave your fingers together like this whenever you need to remind yourself of the love of those around you. How powerful is this message? How powerful is this book? So simple, so true. Next week, our topic is everything is your teacher. I have certainly learned that to be true. If you are enjoying this podcast. Please help me reach 100 reviews and leave a review. Hit the subscribe and download button. And I am just so thankful for our time together and until next week. I am streaming love from my heart to yours.